“I’d like to talk to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’d prefer to do it in person.”
“That may not be possible.”
“You don’t want to see me in person?”
“It’s a matter of logistics,” he said and I realized Lipscomb was probably standing right next to him, filling in my half of the conversation for himself.
“If it helps, it’s about the case. Nothing else.”
“What about the case?”
“I have information I think you need.”
“You took something out of Reynolds’ office.”
“No. Well, I mean, there’s more to it than that.”
“Molly …”
“It’s not Helen. I know it’s not.”
There was a pause and I held my breath. Cassady and Tricia leaned forward, willing their support into me. Cassady also pushed my drink back into my hand in case I needed a more concrete form of support. I pushed the drink away and held my hand out for their hands instead. Cassady and Tricia each grabbed two fingers and clung.
“Nine o’clock.”
My stomach flipped for the fourteenth time that day. “Fine. Do you want me to come to the precinct?”
“No.”
There was another pause and I decided to time this one. “Would you like to come to my apartment?”
“That would be good.”
“Great. Do you need the address?” I asked, solely for the benefit of eavesdroppers. Tricia squirmed in her chair with delight and Cassady’s grip on my fingers increased by about 100 PSI.
“That won’t be necessary. Nine o’clock.”
“See you then.” I hung up and put the phone down on top of Yvonne’s note as a paperweight. “He’s coming to my place at nine.”
“That is so wonderful,” Tricia enthused.
“He’s coming so I can tell him about Yvonne,” I reminded her.
“For starters,” Cassady pointed out. “Who knows where things might lead?”
13
“Stay with me. Please,” I pleaded. I don’t like pleading, but it’s the only thing that works in certain situations. Not that it was working at all at the moment.
Cassady and Tricia were pushing me out of the cab, depositing me on the sidewalk in front of my building, and giggling with delight. We’d never made the transition to dinner, just started adding hors d’oeuvres to our cocktails, so here I was at 8:40, a little buzzed, a little hungry, and a little unsure of how to handle Detective Edwards when he showed up. So I was pleading with my two best friends in the entire world to please, please stay with me, and they were delighting in my apprehension.
“We’d only be in the way,” Cassady insisted. “You have work to do.”
“Important work,” Tricia emphasized.
“You have all your evidence?”
“All I have so far.”
“It’s enough to get him thinking. Remember, this is what he’s trained to do. Though I have no doubt he has other talents.”
That struck Tricia as very funny. They were clearly not getting out of the cab. They were beaching me and sailing off. So be it. “Remember that I invited you to stay when you call me tomorrow morning begging for details.”
“The kind of detail I want isn’t going to happen if we stay, sweetness.” Cassady closed the door, they both blew me kisses and drove off into the night.
Twenty minutes later, I was showered, changed into my most presentable Levis and lawn blouse, and fortified by a vanilla Coke and a dose of peanut butter—Jif, reduced fat but extra crunchy—eaten right off the spoon.
Ten minutes after that, I was pacing, twirling the empty spoon in my fingers, and chomping an Altoid. Edwards had my phone number and could call me if something had come up to prevent his arrival. And ten minutes late wasn’t all that late. Especially for a cop, I had to imagine. Still, it was making me nervous.
But not as nervous as the sight of Edwards in my doorway at 9:18 made me. I was braced for the big blue eyes, but his cheekbones seemed to have gotten higher and sharper since the night before. For a moment, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pull this off.
Then Detective Lipscomb stepped up. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Forrester.”
“Not a problem, detectives. Please come in.” I thought about kneeing Edwards in the groin as he walked by since he’d called from the lobby and just said, “It’s Edwards,” not “It’s Edwards, and my partner and I are here.”
I offered beverages, but they declined. Edwards wouldn’t look me in the eye, which put me on edge. They sat in the two chairs in the living room, leaving me with the couch. I don’t know if it was deliberate, but in one smooth move, they made me feel that I had not summoned them, they had come to interrogate me.
I wasn’t going to let them take the upper hand. I was going to speak first. “My boss Yvonne Hamilton killed Teddy Reynolds.”
Edwards still wouldn’t look at me. He picked at the corner of his notepad instead. Lipscomb looked at me with a professionally bland mini-smile. “Do you have evidence to support your statement?”
“I know Camille Sondergard told you she was having an affair with Teddy and broke it off because his wife found out.” Edwards glanced up at me now, but his eyes quickly returned to his notepad. Did Lipscomb not know about our meeting at Mermaid Inn? “I spoke to Camille myself,” I continued, to clarify the situation for both of us, “but I learned subsequently that the woman Camille thought was Helen Reynolds was actually Yvonne Hamilton.”
Edwards’ eyes came up and stayed up. Lipscomb flipped open his notebook. They were listening. I told them about all the people who could vouch for the affair, including the concierge at the St. Regis. They looked at each other. They hadn’t been to the St. Regis yet, but they’d be going in the morning, I could tell.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” Lipscomb asked, pen poised.
“I think it’s more than an affair gone wrong. I think both Yvonne and Teddy are tied to financial irregularities at the magazine.” I gave them the highlights of the ad problem. “That’s probably just the beginning. Sophie in Accounting may be in on it, too, because this only came to light when she went out on medical leave.” I was thinking out loud and I needed to stop doing that because I could hear a conspiracy theory trying to work its way into things and that wouldn’t help anyone.
“And in your theory,” Lipscomb proceeded carefully, “what does that have to do with Ms. Hamilton killing Mr. Reynolds?” I could feel Edwards’ eyes on me, so I kept mine on Lipscomb. I couldn’t get distracted and start sounding like an idiot now.
“I think the fact that he was betraying her in both business and in love was too much for her.”
“Pretty potent combination,” Lipscomb acknowledged.
“I know she was at her breaking point.” I handed them the scraps of the note in a Ziploc baggie. “This is a note she wrote Teddy, telling him it had to end.”
“‘It’?” Edwards asked quietly.
“Their relationship. I think it can be read as both their emotional and professional relationship.”
Lipscomb took the bag by the very edge and held it up, looking at the pieces inside. “It can be read at all?”
“It fits back together like a jigsaw puzzle.”
“Where did you get it?” Edwards asked as Lipscomb slid my bag into an evidence bag and put the whole thing in his jacket pocket.
“I found it in Yvonne’s office.”
“Did you take it out of the trash?”
“No, I took it out of her music box.”
“Why were you looking in her music box?”
“Because you think Helen killed Teddy and I know she didn’t and I was trying to find a way to prove it to you.”
Lipscomb closed his notepad. That wasn’t good. Edwards sighed. That wasn’t good either. “I wish you had talked to us before you gathered and potentially compromised evidence by yourself,” Edwards said. He looked me right in the eye for the
first time since he’d come in and it still rocked me, even though I was getting irritated with him. I was also getting irritated with myself. Why was I letting this man make me crazy?
“I thought I should have something to back up my statement instead of just mouthing off like a crazy person,” I said, trying to keep my voice smooth and even.
“But this is all—” Edwards began, but Lipscomb gave him a small shake of the head.
“—very interesting and we appreciate it very much. We’ll be in touch.” Lipscomb stood, shook my hand, and started for the door, trusting Edwards to follow him.
I followed more closely than Edwards.
“Detective Lipscomb, I know a kiss-off when I see one,” I protested.
“Ms. Forrester, we truly appreciate everything you’ve done and said, but it’s important for the integrity of the investigation that you let us take it from here. You wouldn’t want to see Mr. Reynolds’ killer go free because of tainted evidence, would you?”
“Of course not—”
“Thank you, Ms. Forrester. We will be in touch,” he repeated carefully for the obedience impaired, and walked out.
I spun around, expecting Edwards to be right behind me. He wasn’t. He was standing ten feet back, watching me with that unreadable expression of his. I glanced over my shoulder, but Lipscomb was not in sight. Was this some variation of good cop/bad cop? Lipscomb is polite but brusque and Edwards stays behind to read me the riot act?
“I’m sorry,” Edwards said after a moment, catching me completely off-guard.
“About?”
“Last night.”
I forced myself not to touch my lips. “I didn’t object. And I certainly didn’t tell anyone.” Cassady and Tricia don’t count.
“It was inappropriate.”
Was he covering his butt or backing away? “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
He walked toward me slowly and I actually felt apprehension instead of excitement. There was something in his manner, something dark I hadn’t seen before. I held my ground and he walked right up to me until we were practically touching. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Then don’t hurt me, I thought, but I knew enough not to push it. He seemed to be talking about a much bigger picture, so I just said, “Thank you.” We were so close I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye. If I rose up on my toes, I could press my mouth against his. It seemed like a great idea and a horrible idea, all wrapped up together.
“When this is over, we’ll do this right,” he murmured, brushing the back of his hand against the back of mine. I forced myself not to quiver as his whole body brushed against mine as he passed me and walked out the door. I’d read about tantric sex and wondered if I’d just experienced tantric foreplay.
I was still trying not to quiver three hours later. I had debriefed Cassady and Tricia and I had worked my way into a bottle of Chatter Creek Syrah. I don’t pretend to be a wine connoisseur because I think that’s just setting yourself up, taunting your friends into giving you some obscure Virginia wine and telling you it’s the latest thing from the central California coast and then sitting back and watching you make a fool of yourself talking about rose petal finishes and complex acidity and migrant labor.
And then there are all those rules about what to drink with what—red with beef, white with fish, roseé with whatever your grandmother serves because it’s the only wine she buys, that sort of thing. I have yet to find a satisfactory explanation of the more important set of rules—Cabernet with a bad break-up, Pinot Grigio with nostalgia, Merlot with revenge, something like that.
In the absence of any set dictates, I decided Syrah went well with anxiety attacks and extracted the bottle of Chatter Creek from my kitchen cupboard. The name seemed appropriate, too, since I was hovering at the edge of that level of anxiety where my teeth begin to clack together.
I had channel surfed endlessly, finally watching the last twenty-five minutes of The King and I because I thought a good cry would help me relax, and I still couldn’t unwind. That’s what cable really needs. A Weeping Channel. A channel that shows nothing but the tearjerker scenes from movies so you can tune in at any time of the day or night and be bawling your head off within five minutes. It would be very therapeutic.
But even after the closing credits, I couldn’t decide. Had I done the right thing? Cassady and Tricia assured me I had. Did Lipscomb and Edwards think I was a lunatic? Probably. Was I? I hoped not. And what to make of Detective Edwards? But that just made the quivering worse.
I poured the last glass of wine, wrapped up in my comforter, and tried to think of nothing but The Lion in Winter, which was starting next on Turner Classic. I should’ve been watching Gaslight but no one was showing it. Right about the point where Anthony Hopkins hides behind the curtains in Timothy Dalton’s bedroom, I finally drifted off.
The next morning, I felt like I had gone to war with France and Spain myself. I wasn’t hungover, I was wrung out. Falling asleep on the couch rarely leads to a peaceful night’s sleep, but I felt like I’d slept with every muscle tensed as hard as possible. And I bet I wouldn’t get a bit of toning or firming out of the whole ordeal. Where was that feeling of freedom and renewal that’s supposed to come with doing the right thing?
Two bottles of water, a banana, and a Frappuccino later, I was still wrestling with that question. And arriving at the office in time to see Yvonne ushering Edwards and Lipscomb out of her office didn’t help as much as one might expect.
Everyone in the bullpen was pretending not to notice the presence of homicide detectives in our midst. But there was a notable absence of tapping on keyboards or talking on telephones. Yvonne stood in the doorway of her office, shaking hands with Edwards and Lipscomb like they’d dropped by for cocktails and had to leave now because they had theater tickets. Fred spotted me across the bullpen and tried to warn me off, but Yvonne spotted me a split second later.
“And of course, if you have more questions,” Yvonne announced to the entire bullpen, if not the entire floor, “Molly’s the one to talk to. This has been Molly’s party all along. Hasn’t it, Molly?”
She wasn’t in handcuffs, so who knew what they’d talked to her about and what they’d said about me. This kept getting messier instead of getting straightened out. It occurred to me to turn and walk back out, maybe walk all the way to Cape Cod and find work in a nice bookstore there, but I thought there was a chance that would be misinterpreted by the authorities. At least Edwards and Lipscomb weren’t telling Yvonne they’d already talked to me plenty. “I don’t think it’s been anyone’s idea of a party,” I said, mainly because everyone seemed to be waiting for me to say something.
“Of course. The columnist makes better choices than the editor.”
“That wasn’t my intention, Yvonne.”
The only thing worse than the whole bullpen listening to this exchange was Edwards and Lipscomb listening to it and probably committing it to memory. I didn’t want them to think that I had some personal agenda fueling my suspicions of Yvonne. It was difficult for me to believe her capable of murder, not convenient.
Yvonne didn’t return my last volley, so I walked over to my desk, trying to project the aura of a woman with no animosity, no guilt, no emotional traumas of any kind. Edwards and Lipscomb left, walking out through the center of the bullpen and avoiding me rather neatly. I sank into my chair in relief.
“Molly!” Yvonne screeched before my chair cushion had even finished settling. I popped back up to my feet because of a physical reaction to the pitch of her voice, not out of any instinct to please.
I walked toward her, wondering if she was going to lecture me about my bad manners in accusing her of murder. Instead, she marched back into her office, her demeanor demanding that I follow. Great. She was going to chew me out behind closed doors. I hoped there would be something left to send home to my parents.
She gestured for me to close the door behind me. I did so reluctantly, leaning against i
t to stay as far away from her as possible. Was I going to want witnesses?
Yvonne clearly didn’t, since she sat down behind her desk and burst into tears. “This is the most awful thing I’ve ever been a part of.”
I nodded because I didn’t want to derail her and because I didn’t want to have to offer fake sympathy. What did she expect when she knifed Teddy? Maybe she hadn’t thought it through sufficiently. A common fault in crimes of passion, I would imagine. Of course, this was looking like a crime of passion plus commerce now, but that didn’t mean it was any better thought out. Still, I was having a hard time feeling anything but uneasy and maybe a little queasy about this emotional display.
“I hate him being gone,” Yvonne continued to sob. “I miss him so. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” I wanted her to get to the point so I could leave.
“The police had a lot of questions …” she said, struggling to compose herself. I was glad to hear that they’d grilled her. Maybe that was part of all the tears. Then she continued, “About you.”
“Excuse me?”
I almost fell over from shock and from the fact that I was still leaning against the door and Fred opened it from the other side without knocking.
“Tricia Vincent is here,” Fred announced, oblivious to the multiple calamities occurring on our side of the door. He didn’t bat an eye at Yvonne’s tear-streaked face or at my gasping one. He just ushered Tricia in, deposited her, and withdrew quickly. He could probably smell the female hormones crackling in the air and was wisely taking cover.
“Good morning,” Tricia said with professional calm.
“Tricia. Thank God.” Yvonne snapped a tissue out of the box on her credenza, wiped her face, and hurried to embrace Tricia. I should have saved Tricia by hugging her myself, but I was still trying to recover from the revelation that Edwards and Lipscomb had asked Yvonne questions about me. Who was playing whom here?
“We’re wrecks. All of us. It’s good you’re here,” Yvonne told Tricia. I had to refrain from pointing out that we were wrecks thanks to Yvonne and offered to take Tricia to the conference room to wait for Helen. It was a ploy on my part to get a moment alone to vent to Tricia, but the moment we stepped out of Yvonne’s office, there was Helen, so that blew that.
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